


Savior: if you're there I bleed the same

by maggief



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 17:56:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6434518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggief/pseuds/maggief
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The existence of the Angel Squad, designation 303rd Regiment, Special Forces Operational Detachment-Alpha, has been denied by the US government for decades. When a covert mission ends badly and Dean Winchester is left in enemy hands, Castiel does the only thing he can, risking almost certain death to go back and save Dean himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Savior: if you're there I bleed the same

The existence of the Angel Squad, designation 303rd Regiment, Special Forces Operational Detachment-Alpha, has been denied by the US government for decades. Whilst the existence of designation-Delta has been acknowledged, established by Colonel Charles Beckwith, and fashioned after the British SAS, the fact that any other designations exist has been repeatedly refuted. Some people call them the ghosts, because you never hear them coming, but you can feel their presence nonetheless, and know where they have been. Rumours abound about the work that Angel Squad do, and where their less-official name comes from. Some will say it’s because they’re specialists at HALO jumps; some because they are doing God’s work; some say they’re called The Angels just because they’re all beautiful.

Sergeant Dean Winchester, SFOD-A 303, snorts into his whisky when he hears this last one. He’s drinking alone in a bar in California, not far from Stanford University, and it shows. Most of the crowd in here are packing fake ID’s, but the management either don’t care, or are too stupid to notice. Dean thinks it’s probably the latter. He’s sitting at the end of the bar, and steadily making his way through a truly awful bottle of local-brand as he waits for his younger brother. As he waits, he listens in to the loud conversation a group of students are having, seated around a table far too small for the group of them, surface laden with half-empty pitchers of lukewarm beer.

“No no no,” one of the guys slurs, raising his voice to be heard above the din of his chattering friends, “they’re Angels because they’re powerful, ya know? Power to smite, and power to heal.”

Several of his friends laugh, and Dean almost joins in. Yeah, he liked the attractive theory better, although he’s not sure he wants to be called beautiful. He’s over six foot tall, he’s been handling weapons almost since he could walk, and he can kill a man with his bare hands; sure he’s easy on the eyes, but he’s not _beautiful._ Not that it wouldn’t be fucking useful to be able to heal people. As good as his squad is, he’s seen too many friends and comrades die, too many brothers-in-arms left to rot in some godforsaken place. The motto ‘leave no man behind’ is a fairytale in their line of work. It’s what people would expect, what they hear in the movies, the idyllic picture of war where you can be carried to safety by your brothers. But The Angels, sometimes there’s no room for a comforting tale, no room for softness. Sometimes it’s all you can do to snag the dog tags for the spouse or the family, who never _know_ what their beloved husband/son/father actually does in the army, so they make up stories for why there’s no body: helicopter crash, IED explosion, reasons why there’s nothing to bury that are a lot more comforting that the cold, hard truth. That they were surrounded, that they were retreating, that they were too injured to carry the deadweight of a man between them, even one of their own. The squad, they get it, have been in enough extreme situations themselves, but the family, they wouldn’t understand that a rescue, an extraction, is sometimes too dangerous, too risky. They may not carry cyanide pills, but they all know how to kill themselves with even the most limited resources if they’re captured, and they all know that sometimes being left behind is so the whole team don’t die alongside you.

Dean supposes these college kids wouldn’t believe him if he told them, what being in The Angels is really like. It’s hard, and it’s dirty, but the men that fight beside him, he trusts them beyond the limits of this world. Which is probably fitting considering they fight the monsters that should exist only in fiction, the unnatural, the supernatural, the stuff of bad B-roll horror movies and every bad dream about things that go bump in the night. Dean supposes these fresh-faced college kids wouldn’t believe him about that either. That vampires are real, and werewolves, shapeshifters, wendigos, hell even dragons. Angels, no, but that’s why the 303 do the job they do, because someone has to keep the nightmares at bay, someone has to keep these creatures firmly behind the curtain of secrecy, of bedtime scare stories and campfire tales.

He’s considering switching to beer when the door to the bar opens, bringing with it a swirl of the warm, Californian night air. Dean’s turned enough away from the bar that he can see the door out of the corner of his eye. Call him paranoid, sure, but he likes being aware of his surroundings, it gives him some semblance of control even in the most public of places. If being in the Angels has taught him one thing, it’s that Mad-Eye Moody wasn’t wrong, and constant vigilance really does pay off. _And yes, thank you Sammy,_ he responds to the voice in his head as the man himself approaches, _he is well aware they are children’s books, but they’re damn good alright._

He glances over as Sam strides towards him, long hair curled around his ears like some sort of hippie. Dean doesn’t care though, his brother can look as ridiculous as he wants because he got out, has a job where the length of his hair isn’t dictated by military standards. Dean, his hair is regulation short, always has been. He doesn’t see Sam enough now he’s at law school here, but that’s mostly Dean’s fault, barely getting enough time to leave the base when they do make it back there between assignments. 

Their home base, where they’re stationed whenever they’re not out on a mission, or on perpetually-too-short bouts of leave, is situated only around two hours’ drive from Stanford, just outside a town called Angels Camp. Dean is pretty sure the town came first, but there’s rumours that The Angels have been around since before the Declaration of Independence, and not even Benny, their captain, knows the true origins of the 303rd. Their unit structure is also unusual - the Angels consists of three squads of 12 men who operate entirely independently of each other. Dean literally could not even tell you their names, but he can recognise a fellow Angel when he sees one; asides from the small, unobtrusive patch on their uniform, which merely says _Special Forces_ , there’s just a way that they hold themselves, a look in their eyes. You don’t sign up to join The Angels, you get recruited, usually out of the Marines, or other Special Forces divisions, and they don’t give a crap what rank you are - if they want you, they’ll find space for you in a squad sooner or later. And so Dean, he’s a sergeant, with a specialism in bomb-making and explosives. Cas, Castiel Novak, Dean’s closest friend since the day that Cas ran into him in 10th grade, is a corporal. Cas was a fully qualified doctor before he up and joined the marines and was poached by The Angels a mere six months later. Dean, already in the marines for two years at that point was inducted into The Angels a few weeks later, and Dean’s always harboured his suspicions that it was Cas’ doing somehow, that he dragged Dean out of the obscurity of the marines and gave him purpose with The Angels. Cas vehemently denies this, of course, but Dean’s certain all the same, and it’s just one more reason to add to the list that’s been accumulating for years of why he’d die for Castiel Novak.

“How ya doing, Samantha?” Sam looks tired, but he looks good, youthful, a fire in his eyes that was missing for much of their childhood as they moved from one motel to the next, never staying anywhere long enough to make friends, until John Winchester had died when Dean was 16, Sammy only 12 and yet to hit his growth spurt.

Dean often wonders why John Winchester had never been in The Angels - and he hadn’t; it had taken a bit of technical wizardry from Ash, their comms expert, but he’d checked his dad’s service record. He’d been in the marines, he certainly had knowledge of the supernatural - that’s where Dean had learnt half of what he knows, after all - but The Angels had never recruited him. Then again, as much as Dean is happy to drown himself in whisky when he’s on leave, he never drinks whilst on duty, the demands of the job far too punishing to manage whilst drunk. And Dean’s father, well, he may have been in the marines once upon a time, but after Mary Winchester’s death weeks would go by where he seemed to love the bottle more than his own sons, his own flesh and blood; The Angels couldn’t have trusted John Winchester. Dean is well aware that he’s his father’s son in more ways than one. It’s far too easy to sink drink after drink, the smooth liquor sliding down like nothing more than water. But, he has a greater incentive that the sweet ease of alcohol - The Angels need him, and he needs them, and so when he’s on duty, he’s only ever stone cold sober.

“Don’t call me that” Sam drops as he sits down, but Dean can tell his heart’s not really in it.

“You alright?” he asks, as he shoots a concerned glance over at his younger brother.

“Yeah.”

Sam runs his fingers through his hair. “Just stressed about finals coming up, and Jess has been out of sorts lately too.” He sighs again. “It’s fine.”

He glances at the near-empty glass resting in Dean’s curled palm. “Another?”

“Yeah,” Dean replies, nodding quickly, “better make it a beer though, we're shipping out tomorrow.”

Somewhere abroad? Sam asks, curious about the term shipping, he was sure Dean normally used heading out...

“Nah, man. Nearby I think. Benny didn’t seem to be expecting a long journey” he replies, holding his palms out in front of him in a shrugging gesture. Most of their missions are need-to-know, and half the time the squad are never explicitly told where they’re headed, but over the past two years Dean has learnt to read the clues from his superiors and fellow Angels.

Sam stands back up and heads over to the bar, glancing back at his brother with a concerned look that was hard to miss. Something seemed off about him, although he wasn't sure what. Maybe he was just projecting. It had been a long week. Sam knows what his brother does, the truth of it, although neither of them has ever said it out loud. But Sam grew up in the same household that Dean did, and never even knew those first few years of domestic normalcy before John had starting dragging them around the country in search of the demon that had killed his wife. Sam Winchester knew all about the supernatural, and the work of The Angels.

The brothers enjoy a good few beers together, tension easing from both of their shoulders as they fall into their easy, familiar banter. They call it a night just before midnight, but Sam lingers, hesitantly, like he wants to say something.

“You waiting on Cas?” Sam asks as they exit the bar into the unseasonably warm April night. 

Dean nods at Sam. “Yeah, he was out visiting Anna in San Fran today, told him he’d get a lift back to base if he showed up by midnight.” They both know that Dean won’t leave Cas if he’s late, but Dean likes to pretend.

“Yeah.” Sam responds and Dean looks at him more closely. He should ask what’s up. There’s something that Sam’s been skirting round the whole night, and Dean _knows_ he should ask, that it’s his job as a big brother to care but maybe it’s something bad and Dean just doesn’t want to know right now. He’ll ask when he’s back off this next recce, it’s Sam’s birthday next week, and maybe it’s just impending exams that have got him all tense, brow scrunched up in worry. He’ll ask next week.

As he draws Sam into a huge bear hug, a familiar figure climbs out of a cab a few feet down the curb. _Cas._ As Dean lets go of Sammy and gets a proper look of Cas’s lean legs in his dark jeans, he can’t help but feel that flutter of _something_ in his stomach. And goddamn it sounds girly as fuck, but it’s something that’s been building recently, or maybe it’s been building for the last 10 years but Dean’s finding it harder and harder to ignore and he doesn’t know what to do.

“Cas, hey man.” Sam greets the other man as he draws close, dropping a hand onto Cas’s shoulder.

“Sam. How are you?” Cas’s smile is warm in greeting, and Dean’s own mouth smiles in response even though Cas isn’t even looking at him. He finds it hard not to smile at Cas, like his own body is tuned to agree with whatever mood Cas is in. They live together, and they work together, spend basically every waking hour together, maybe it’s just normal? Maybe it’s got nothing to do with the way Cas’s jeans hug his ass like they were made just for him.

“Yeah, good.” Sam replies, but Dean doesn’t miss the tone of voice, the unsure flicker in his words. “I’m gonna catch that cab though, so I’ll see you both. Be safe.” He fixes them both a sincere look at this last part, heartfelt as always.

————————————————

Dean should have fucking known that heading somewhere called Mt. Diablo wasn’t going to go well. For all that they’re barely more than a stone’s throw from civilisation, less than 100km from Stanford, they may as well be in hell 

They’ve been in some sort of cave system that runs below the mountain for over twelve hours now. It’s dark, far darker than it has any right in being, and no matter whether they use electric torches, or fire to light their way, the illumination barely seems to pass more than half a foot in front of them.

Ash is limping - something, and nobody got a decent look at it, had taken a chunk out of his leg with razor sharp teeth. He’s passed the bulk of his comms equipment off to the rest of the team and still seems to be moving well, despite the grimaces that can be heard coming from him periodically. The whole squad are on edge, but still they’re pressing onwards because they haven’t killed anything yet, and there’s been nine dead hikers in the last month alone. Whatever lives here is ruthless, it’s deadly, and they need to stop it.

Dean feels uneasy, more so than he usually does out on a mission. The sweat is beading on the back of the neck making him feel cold and clammy in the dark of the caves. His heart feels like it’s jumpy around in his throat, making his fingers tight and jittery. He’s got a bad feeling about this mission, and the feeling isn’t improving the longer they spend underground.

Dean feels the air shift around them, Benny calls the squad up to a halt. Their fading footsteps echo endlessly around them, and they must have entered some sort of cavern rather than the claustrophobic tunnels they’d been occupying previously.

“Everyone, quick refuel, check your rifles. Intel suggests the nest is on the other side of this hall. Eyes sharp.”

A brief murmur runs around the squad, but Dean can’t tell it is happy that this shit show is nearly at an end, or trepidation that they still have to fight. Minutes later they are heading across the empty cavern, and Dean can’t shake the feeling that something is watching them. It makes him feel like when they’re in Moria in Lord of the Rings, and the orcs start swarming. He swears he can hear light footsteps echoing all around, and sharp breaths whistling through sharp teeth.

He checks behind him, but can’t see anything in the gloom despite the torches they carry. He can just about make out Cas’s profile on his right, face set in a grim line as they advance quickly but quietly across the open space. All of a sudden the rustling noises that had been surrounding them seem to go quiet - no footsteps, no breathing, no unintelligible whispers - just _nothing._ Worse than nothing, like the absence of something.

BOOM

A loud crash, and a burst of light that blinds Dean’s night vision. Blinking furiously in the subsequent darkness he gropes around, hoping to catch onto Cas’s shoulder where he’d been next to him only moments before. Instead he hears a choked-off scream and a wet gurgling sound behind them as one of the squad is attacked.

He hopes to fuck that wasn’t Cas, because Dean knows what it sounds like when a man loses too much blood too quickly, knows the sound of a throat being sliced open even in the blackest darkness.

There’s another scream, then two more. High pitched, unnatural sounds that feel like metal scraping across concrete, like impossibly sharp nails on an old chalkboard. Benny’s voice breaks through the gloom, “303, on me! Double time.”

Dean feels the mood of the men around him shift even though he still can’t _see_ anyone, as they start running towards the far side of the cavern, hoping for some sort of cover, some place to form a defence. There’s a small light ahead that seems to be growing, and Dean can now see the other members of his squad running beside him, recognises the broad span of Cas’s shoulders just in front of him.

 _They’ll be fine, if they can just make that opening ahead_.

And that’s the last thought he has before something heavy crashes down on the back of his head, sending him spiralling into unconsciousness.

————————————————

In all honesty, Dean is surprised to wake up at all. He doesn’t know how much time has passed - a quick glance down at his wrist shows a cracked watch face staring blankly back at him. But at least it’s light enough to see, although Dean’s not sure that makes the situation any better.

Across the room he can see several bodies, in various states of … well, he doesn’t want to look too closely or think about what’s in store for him. They look like they’ve been eaten, at least two of them are their missing hikers, and Dean realises with a start that the freshest of the pile is Mike, their sharp shooter. He’s missing an arm, and he’s definitely dead. Dean’s head throbs in time with the grimace that passes across his face. He really doesn’t want to get eaten.

He’s completely naked, shackled to the cold stone wall behind him with heavy iron chains. There’s no loose stones or anything metal anywhere near him so no way he can pick the lock and free himself. This is really not looking good for him, and odds are the squad have got the hell out of dodge by now. They certainly wouldn’t be staging a rescue unless they’d managed to kill all those creatures, and figure out where the hell Dean is. He’s going to die here, and then be eaten, possibly not even in that order.

He head pulses painfully and Dean has to close his eyes against the pain. He sags in the chains supporting him, trying not to think too hard about what’s to come.

He’s not sure how long he’s been there, slipping in and out of unconsciousness when he realises he can hear something new. It sounds like… like explosions, but without any munitions. Like something soft is exploding spontaneously. Somethings soft, as the sound gets closer Dean can hear wet slops as whatever it is impacts upon the rough stone walls. _What the hell?_

Down the corridor towards his left he can now see that the explosions are accompanied by bright bursts of blue-white light, pulsing rhythmically like a heartbeat or something. Dean hopes to hell that this isn’t the thing going to eat him, and tries to shuffle back into the wall. There’s no cover to be had here though, nothing to hide behind even if he wasn’t chained up.

Dean looks away as the light finally enters the room, but it doesn’t burn his eyes, isn’t too bright for him to look at, and yet still at first, he doesn’t understand what he’s looking at.

_It’s Cas._

Castiel bloody Novak, shirtless and bruised, that freaky-ass tattoo on his side standing out in sharp relief so Dean _knows_ that it’s him, but still he doesn’t get it.

Cas’s eyes are blue. Burning bright blue-white just like the light from the corridor.

_What the actual fuck?_

Cas approaches Dean slowly, as if he’s scared that Dean is going to bolt, which is fucking laughable really because he’s still chained to the wall.

Cas’s hands drop to the chains around Dean’s wrists and they fall away with a loud clang.

“Dean—“

Cas stares at him blankly, eyes still that impossible blue, as Dean reaches up a trembling hand towards his face.

He huffs out a small laugh. “Guess they weren’t so wrong about the angel part after all.”

Cas blinks at him, face frozen, before his mouth splits into an open smile.

“How? Why?” Dean isn’t even sure what he’s asking, just that he has to ask.

“I—“ Cas falters… “I had to try. I couldn’t let you die alone, no matter what.”

Dean only smiles in response, and then ever so softly leans forward to slot his lips against Cas’. His eyes are still glowing blue, but Dean knows that face better than he knows his own, and as their lips meet Dean knows this is right, know this, _this_ , is truly what they are meant to be to each other.

He can feel Cas smiling into his lips before he pulls away, grimacing again as he head throbs painfully, vision swimming. He feels Cas’ fingers run through his hair as he tries to fight against the unconsciousness threatening to take him once again.

“It’s ok, Dean. I’ll make sure you’re safe. Trust me.”

And so Dean does, and he lets unconsciousness claim him, knowing that Cas will make sure he’s safe, just like always.

  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! This was written as part of the Destiel Reverse Bang 2016, inspired by [topieornottopie](http://topieornottopie.tumblr.com/)'s amazing artwork, which can also be found [here](http://topieornottopie.tumblr.com/post/142128998354/this-is-my-other-entry-for-the-destiel-reverse) \- go give it some love/a reblog!
> 
> Title is from the song [Where's my Love by Syml](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAG97kBUr4E).
> 
> Partly unbeta-ed still, so please feel free to point out errors, I will be coming back to fix them but wanted to get it up!


End file.
